


Anne of Thyme Point National Park

by alwaysafan24



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Bullying, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mates, Small Towns, Tomboy, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24245248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysafan24/pseuds/alwaysafan24
Summary: Anne, better known as Annie, has spent her whole life as the bad influence of St. Liapa. Parents had cautioned their kids away from her and she didn’t spend much time fighting it. Things were pretty much normal until her sixteenth birthday. Her mother was acting weird about a party, the locals were actually being kind, her mortal-enemy kept sniffing the air as she walked past and the full-moon was looking more hypnotizing than ever.Everyone keeps saying how big a mile-stone her sixteenth birthday is going to be, Annie might be beginning to understand why. It’s definitely going to be more hair-raising than any birthday past.
Relationships: Anne/Beau, Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story about werewolves and I'm not completely sure where I'm going with it. I'll try and update as much as I can. Please leave me a comment, it will really help me out.

St. Liapa is a small-town. Not the smallest by any means, but small enough that everyone knows everyone, and their business included. The town had little roads that led nowhere and people that were going nowhere perpetually also. The only sort of fame the town got was from the Thyme Point National Park right next door. Every summer a couple hundred tourists came down with their big camper vans and decided to set up shop. The park has a giant lake good for swimming in, and local teenagers who weren’t old enough to buy beer yet hung out around the lake, guzzling alcohol and taking part in the horizontal tango within the trees.   
Unfortunately, I had never been invited. If I did, I know I would have certainly not taken part in the festivities. I had only been drunk once in my life, my mom as witness and I had no urge to get plastered and fumble around with a random in the dark, hoping eventually one of us would find a zipper.   
I was more of a stay home and smoke cigarettes out of my bedroom window, making sure my mom didn’t know, type of girl. The bedroom smoking was becoming a problem. I could walk the streets and smoke my life away but I’m sure one of the hundreds of people who knew my mom would go back and tattle and I wasn’t ready for a death sentence just yet. 

I had lived in St. Liapa my whole life, never gone further than the old, boarded-up Sierra Motel on GateAcre Road. Our town had a skill in choosing strange names for places. The whole of St. Liapa was strange in all honesty.

“Annie! Can you come help me with the decorations!?”

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. My mother had been pulling in decorations all afternoon, getting ready for my upcoming 16th birthday. I’m not sure what all the fuss was about, every other year she couldn’t have cared less about it, but this year she was all gung-ho about me having a ‘big birthday bash’. She’d invited tons of family members, from forgotten cousins to nosy Aunts and I was dreading all of it.

“Coming!”

I quickly blew out the last of my cigarette and flung it out my window, making sure to flap away the smoke before I closed it. It was a miracle my mother hadn’t discovered it yet; she was perceptive about things usually. 

As I made my way downstairs, I couldn’t help but groan in embarrassment. Pink balloons gathered in the hallway, already blow up with helium and banners adorning ‘Happy sixteenth’ lay on the hallway table.

“Mom, you can’t be serious?”

Mother was standing in the kitchen, ticking off things in a tiny, black notebook that she had been fairly obsessed with the last few weeks.

“What? Oh, come on Annie, your sixteenth birthday is very important. Especially to me”

“I don’t understand why though, none of my other birthdays have interested you this much”

“Well, now I’m making up for it. Now, can you be helpful and go bring in the rest of the balloons?”

I turned to the front door and noticed around ten more pink balloons, all just sitting there, mocking me. I didn’t even like pink.  
…………………………………………………..  
“So, your mom’s pretty excited huh?”

“Yep, bought pink balloons and everything”

After helping mother bring in the rest of her decorations, I thought of any excuse I could and got out of dodge. I rung the doorbell of my friend Bess and we ended up sitting on a bench outside the local diner. We weren’t planning to go in and eat, we didn’t have any money and we were pretty sure we weren’t welcome.

The Oak Diner had been a staple in St. Liapa since I was born. The diner had always been owned by the Barnes family, and you could say they weren’t my biggest fans. A few years ago, Bess and I ordered a burger and ran off without paying. Mother had found out, like I knew she would and both Bess and I ended up apologising. But it was pretty much known we were both effectively barred from the establishment. It didn’t bother me anyway, their burgers tasted like ass.

“Hey, Annie! You listening?”

I was brought back to reality by Bess shaking my arm and getting saliva from her screaming into my ear.

“Yeah, I’m listening”

Bess and I had been friends for as long as I could remember, always doing stupid shit and getting our reputations tarnished together. It was harder than you’d think, St. Liapa didn’t have a high reputation for people. She was a tall girl, standing near 6ft3, while I was a measly 5’8. I did make up for it in my personality though. Her hair was rarely combed through, shoved into some ridiculously high ponytail with constant knots. She always wore trainers and jeans, even in summer and spoke with a slight lisp. 

“So, who’s been invited?”

If I did say so myself, I think Bess was excited about the clownish party mother was organising. She seemed giddy in her seat, holding onto the bench with her hands, her legs shaking below her.

“Just family members I think, and you of course”

“Sounds like it’s gonna be fun…oh god…look”

Bess’s giddiness ceased and she took on and overall meek tone, lowering herself down and pointing slightly towards the front of the diner.

When I followed her pointing, I understood why. The unmistakable presence of Beau Barnes stood 10 feet ahead of us, along with his whole motley crew. The son of Alcott Barnes, the aforementioned owner of Oak Diner, and the biggest prick I had ever met. I had known him since age five and growing older did nothing for his personality. He always seemed to be standing around, douching it up in my vicinity.

The only positive was his looks. He was an attractive guy, standing even taller than Bess with wavy, dark hair and cool-grey eyes. He was popular too, I wouldn’t say the most popular, he was too much of a dick for that, but a lot of girls liked him. Bess and I were not included. 

Beau always had a small group of lackeys at his side, girls and boys included, and they always hung out at the stupid diner. 

Bess was pretty scared of the guy. He once spread a rumour that she was a hermaphrodite and her parents played rock-paper-scissors on what to raise her as. Bess tried to confront him about it but couldn’t get the words out properly with her lisp and all the nerves. Beau ended up mocking her for it and now Bess took on a nauseous green tinge if even his name was mentioned. 

I wasn’t frightened of him myself. I just saw a walking kick-me sign I loved to irritate.

“You’re not gonna go up to him, are you Annie?”

“Hmmm, not today, I’m all wiped out from mommy-dearest this morning. I’d just be wasting oxygen; I’ll get him tomorrow”

“I don’t understand why you like annoying him so much. You know you’ll just get in trouble”

Ever since the hermaphrodite rumour sprang up, I had made it my personal mission to torment Beau into complete insanity. From slashing the tires on his car, to filling his backpack with used tampons and pads from the girl’s toilets. I got creative with my efforts.

“He deserves it Bess. Someone needs to bring him down a peg or two”

I wrapped my arm over Bess’s shoulder, bringing her in close.

“I think someone needs to bring you down a peg or two”

Bess’s statement probably had a grain of truth to it, I pretty much acknowledged I wasn’t the nicest person. But I’d like to think I wasn’t nice to only people who deserved it, I think that certainly weighs out the negatives. 

Now I just had to worry about if mother was going to order any more pink balloons.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment, it really helps ;)

Lying in my bed that night, I began thinking of nefarious plots to undermine Beau. Filling his locker with wet toilet paper was out of the question, I did that last week and I liked to be innovative with my efforts. I could spread some rumours about him, but I wasn’t the most well-trusted person at my school so I don’t think anyone would believe me anyway. I had already messed with his car and I didn’t feel like getting pulled into the principal’s office again for defacing another student’s property. Mother was pretty upset about the last one, she had to get off work early for the meeting and Beau’s mother also joined us. 

What I will say about the Barnes family is that they are all very well-composed during stressful situations. Unlike my mother who went fully off the hinges and began slapping me around my head with her purse. I had a headache for a week after that escapade of mine.

By the time morning rolled around I still hadn’t thought of anything creative enough for me to even want to claim my name to. Mother noticed my contemplation.

“You alright sweetie?”

I was circling my spoon through my cereal, staring at the kitchen clock ticking away.

“Fine mom, just thinking about stuff”

“Well I hope it has nothing to do with that Barnes boy. Every time you get in trouble at that school it always winds up being about him”

I was offended at her accusation, she made it seem like I spent all my time thinking about Beau. I thought about other things, like Bess and…myself, I guess. 

“Don’t worry mom, messing with Beau isn’t even in my thoughts”

I smiled at her sweetly, taking one last slurp of my cereal and tipping the rest in the bin, swishing out the remnants in the sink. 

“Anyways, I better get heading off, don’t want to be last for Miss Snyder’s class again. That women doles out detentions like it’s nothing”

Swiping my backpack, I sprang out of my doorway and head left down the street, making my towards Bess’s house. It was nearing summer and I could feel the heat of the sun blaring down through my t-shirt and into my back. I enjoyed nature, just not in the heat, I didn’t do well with heat. After the near 5-minute walk to Bess’s house I was already leaking sweat down my forehead and onto my chest.

I didn’t bother knocking, Bess usually watched out the front window for me and sure enough she was already walking down the steps of her porch. Her mother was half a step away behind her, whispering in her ear. I wouldn’t like to say that Bess’s parents were crazy, but they weren’t far from it. They’d pretty much sheltered Bess all her life, home-schooling her for a few years till they finally let her join public school. By the time our friendship began, Bess hadn’t even drunk Coke before, let alone done anything else.   
Every morning I was treated to the sight of Bess’s mother whispering the many different rules they had set out for her at school in her ear. She wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere by herself, which is why I made it a point to walk with her every morning, giving her relief from her mother trying to walk her to school. She wasn’t allowed to eat lunch from the cafeteria, only what they packed, which might be a saving-grace. School lunch was a little funky on the best of days. She also wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone of the opposite sex, which I thought was damn-near impossible. Our school was mix gendered, what did they want her to do? Play dead if a male specimen came around the corner? Bess hasn’t followed that rule in years though, not that it granted her any more confidence around said male specimens. 

“Promise me you’ll follow our rules Bess”

Miss Delaney held onto Bess’s shoulders, staring right into her eyes. It was like a routine now, like brushing your teeth.

“I promise momma”

“That’s a good girl. Annie make sure to take care of her”

I nodded in agreement as Miss Delaney gave Bess one last kiss on her forehead, leaving a bright red lipstick mark that Bess will inevitably rub off on our walk. 

To be honest, I was surprised Miss Delaney even liked me. From a young age I had always been known as a problem child, I got in fights at every school I’d been too, and I admit to being a pretty nasty kid when I was younger. Parents told their kids to stay away from me, not ask me to take care of them. Miss Delaney was a god-fearing woman though, must be all that forgiveness in her.

Bess and I trotted off from her house, sweat now pooling down my legs.

“Feeling the heat Annie?”

“You know it, why can’t St. Liapa be like other creepy, small towns and bring in mist and fog? Why do we get the humidity from the devil’s playground?”

“Don’t go speaking about devil’s in front of me, I get enough of that from momma”

I rolled my eyes at Bess’s response and trudged onwards, ending up on main street just down from St. Liapa High School. The school wasn’t big, only 2 floors and covered in this hideous red brick that most of the houses were also made from. The sign of the school stood in big, block red letters against the side of the building.

I could see the rest of the students gathering in groups outside the main doors, talking amongst themselves. I was only looking for one person and he sure did know how to make an entrance. 

Beau’s big, black range rover began pulling into the school carpark, just as Bess and I were making our way up to the main patio. It was the same every morning, Beau parked and out jumped his crew while flocks of girls watched his every move from the side-lines. 

“I’m guessing you’ve got something big planned?”

“Not as of yet, I just wanted to get a look at my victim, helps with inspiration”

Beau and his gang all looked like the same Abercrombie and Fitch model, only multiplied by five and the gender for some changed. Beau wore what he wore every other day, black jeans and tight, grey crew neck shirt. Sometimes a jumper if it’s cold enough. The other group members all seemed to wear some combination of black and grey, never stepping out of monotone colours. Sheesh, would it kill them to be a bit more exuberant?

Beau had his arm wrapped around some blonde witch with 6ft legs. I think her name was Adele, she followed Beau like a puppy dog with the rest of them.   
And all of them were heading right our way. 

“Annie, shouldn’t we go in?”

As Beau began turning his head, his eyes dropped right towards me, his nostrils flaring and his expressions becoming hardened. I made sure to never drop my stare.  
“You know you can’t fear him your whole life Bess? Someday you’ll have to face him”

“I know, but I’d rather that day wasn’t today”

Bess tried to grab onto my backpack and pull me up the steps and through the main door, but I was having none of it. I enjoyed Beau’s and I’s confrontations too much to miss one, where else would I get my daily dose of excitement?

Soon enough, the Abercrombie’s were in front of us both, mainly acting nonchalant, like our presence was of no importance.

“Been damaging anymore cars this morning Annie?”

Beau smirked at me, the smirk coming off nasty and hateful.

“Not yet Beau, but I think I do have a few more tricks up my sleeve”

“Whatever”

Adele pushed right between Bess and I, dragging Beau with her by the hand. The rest of the puppy dogs following close behind.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be”

Bess almost sounded relieved from Beau’s leaving. All it did was get me fired up, all I need to do was come up with a plan.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is one use of offensive language in this chapter. Sorry if I cause any offence, I only use it for the context of the story.

“Remember to circle in your answers, not a cross and certainly not a tick”

Why I needed to attend Miss Snyder’s math class right before lunch was a mystery to me. A mystery I was unlikely to solve. And we had a quiz, someone kill me.  
Bess and I sat next to each other, in different rows but always together. We sat by each other in every class we were in together, which was most. 

“Hey, what answer did you get for five?”

We also swapped answers when no teachers were looking.

"Err…300?”

“Hmm, that’s weird. I got 25.3, oh well”

Bess was the sweetest, but she wasn’t the smartest. I wasn’t pay much attention to the stupid quiz anyway, I was thinking up the most diabolical plan in all of existence to get Beau at lunch. 

It was absolutely perfect. Lunch was high-profile, so his extensive humiliation will be watched by all and I will stand off to the side, knowing I did my work for the day. All I needed to do was figure out how to get a 30kg bucket of chilli onto a swinging rope and to rain down on his crappy crewneck. Whatever, these were all just details. I needed to ditch this class before that for the set-up.#

“Psst, Bess”

“Leave me alone, I’m trying to answer my test”

Bess must have saw my plan-making face on, she was having none of it.

“Psst”

“What?”

Finally, she was coming around to my way of thinking…maybe.

“Follow my lead, okay?”

Confusion overcame Bess’s face, but she nodded her head nonetheless, always welcome to follow my lead.

As everyone’s heads were hunkered over their desks for the test, I raised my hand, hoping to catch Miss Snyder’s attention. Miss Snyder was sitting at her desk, reading what appeared to be another bodice-ripper romance, geez the lady needed to get out more. When she finally noticed my hand, she seemed neither surprised nor impressed.

“Yes Miss Connolly?”

Miss Snyder lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose, looking down at me from it.

“I’m sorry Miss Snyder, but I don’t think Bess is feeling very well, I think I may need to take her to the nurse”

Bess watched the exchange with apprehension. When she heard my statement of her sickness, she began dramatically holding her stomach with her arms and groaning heavily.

“Is this true Miss Delaney?”

Bess nodded her head in agreement, groaning even more and even beginning to heave a small amount. I knew I could trust her to pull through.

“And why Miss Connolly, do you need to be the one to take her to the nurse? Miss Delaney is old enough to walk herself down the hall”

By now everyone in class had forgotten their tests, watching Miss Snyder’s and I’s exchange in rapture. Not many exciting things happened in St. Liapa, you need to take it where you can get it. 

“I think it’s quite common knowledge that I’m the only one trusted by Bess’s mother to take care of her, and I’m guessing it wouldn’t be good for the school if Mrs Delaney got upset by my leaving Bess on her own”

It was known around town that Bess’s family was old money, when they finally moved to St. Liapa when Bess was five there was a lot of gossip about a family with their own brand of coffee moving to our tiny, little town. When Bess finally entered public school, Mrs Delaney was very grateful for how easy the school made the process and how they made Bess feel welcomed. She’d been giving donations to the schoolboard ever since. 

Too bad the school didn’t help Bess with her bullying problem though, little old me had to sort that one out.

When Miss Snyder heard my rhetoric, she made an over-exaggerated gesture of not knowing what I meant and that ‘she would never want to disrespect Miss Snyder, how could I even think that?’

Bess and I both left the classroom with a flare and walked down the hall.

“So, what are we actually doing Annie? Are we going to the nurse? Am I going to have to pretend to be sick all day? Cause, you know I don’t do good under pressure”

Bess was working herself into a state, I managed to grab her arms and place them by her side while she was flailing around.

“No Bess, you don’t need to pretend to be sick. I just needed you out of there so you can help me with my plan for Beau”

“Come on Annie, you know that thing with Beau doesn’t even bother me much anymore, I’m completely over it”

“Yeah, so over it that you can’t stand to be in the same room with him without hurling up your breakfast. Now, let’s go, we’ve got a lot of work to do”

……………………………………………………………  
This plan was pure gold. I could just feel it, my skin was tingling with goose bumps and I couldn’t help but smile. 

The cafeteria had already filled up. Students were chattering away while refusing to eat the beef casserole being given out. I wouldn’t touch the food here with a ten-foot pole. Unfortunately, it wasn’t chilli liked I planned, but it still stank the same, so semantics.

“I’m worried about this Annie; I think Beau is gonna get really mad this time”

“I know, I can’t wait”

I was grinning like an excited schoolgirl; which I guess I was. Everyone must have thought I really lost it this time. I kept smiling like the Joker and looking around the cafeteria, waiting for any moment that Beau came through. 

The plan I had come up with was brilliant. Bess and I had collected a handful of rope from the gym, finally finding a reason to put it to good use instead of having stupid teenagers climbing the stuff. We’d swiped a bucket of cold, uncooked beef casserole from the empty kitchens. I knew from experience that the cooks left the door unlocked as they went for their 10-minute cigarette break.

The only problem was getting the bucket high enough on the rope to keep it swinging above the lunch table Beau and his crew usually sat at. I thought it would be difficult pulling the 30kg bucket up, but I found it no heavier than lifting an empty bucket. Huh, all this planning must be giving me a work-out or something because I’d never felt stronger. Probably late puberty.

Just as I finished my thought, Beau walked right through the cafeteria doors with the others trailing behind. Adele was right next to him, keeping his arm firmly across her shoulders and his hand occasionally slipping way to close to her breast to be appropriate in public, but hey, what did I know?  
His crewneck was looking nice and shiny today, I couldn’t wait to get it smothered. I didn’t think about the fact that Adele would be right next to him, she’d probably be collateral in all the mess. This plan of mine just keeps on giving. 

Beau swerved right past the lunch ladies serving the food, I’ve never actually seen him eat in the cafeteria. Not that I’m judging him or anything, I just thought it weird that he sat in here everyday but never ate. At least I was sensible enough to know to go out the backway and smoke, missing all the heinous smell.

“So…when you gonna do it?”

“All in good time Bess, we need to let them get comfy first”

I watched Beau like a hawk, waiting for the right moment when they would never suspect a thing. I was shocked he didn’t notice me watching him, he could usually tell when I was close.

I knew the time had come when Beau and Adele began making out like they weren’t in a room with a bunch of virgin teenagers who would be uncomfortable and jealous with hot people getting it on. God, it’s like the never thought about anyone else.

When setting up the rope, I tied it to a bunch of railings in a kind of small hallway in the back of the cafeteria. It was out of the way so no one would see the obvious looking rope but still close enough that everything worked. I had also nicked a sharp, cutting knife from the kitchens, sharp enough to cut the rope and let it swing.

As I began cutting the rope, I did have second thoughts. ‘Isn’t this a little mean?’ I thought. But then I pushed that out of my head. It was just too fun to stop.

As the rope finally split, I saw everything happen in slow motion. The rope attached to the railing let go and along with it did the higher rope thrown over the ceiling lights. And with it came down the glorious bucket of chilli.

The first thing I heard was Adele’s high-pitched scream. She really could be dramatic. The whole of the cafeteria turned towards Beau’s table, revelling in the commotion. Adele stood from her seat and looked so shocked and confused I thought I might pee myself from how amusing it was.

“What the hell just happened! Beau, what just happened!?”

Beau didn’t stand like Adele, he just sat there with his fists tightening on the tabletop as the rest of his buddies sat there wondering what on earth to do.

The gravy from the beef casserole dripped from his dark fringe, the chunks of meat just sitting there. His crewneck had now gone grey to dark, vomit-looking brownie-black. He wouldn’t be wearing that for a while.

“I know exactly what happened Adele. I just need to catch her”

Gulp.

I needed to get out of here like now. I grabbed Bess by her arm and turned us both around, knowing a back door we could escape out of. Sadly, one of Beau’s bigger cronies had magically appeared behind us, stopping us in our escape and seeming more intimidating than ever with his muscles rippling under his black vest.

“Little Annie Connolly, why am I not surprised? Only you could come up with a plan this gross and childish”

That was offensive.

“I take offense to that Beau; I think my plans are plenty mature. You just don’t understand humour”

“Humour?! You think this is funny? I smell like rotten dog-food!”

“Well, it should suit you. You are a dog after all”

Beau almost began to charge at me, his eyes almost becoming fluorescent in the cafeteria lights until one of his friends put a handout to stop him and seemed to share an exchange non-verbally. That was weird. 

Beau began to sigh, and his shoulders loosened.

“You know what Connolly? I can’t even be bothered to fight with you about it, you’re just not worth it. Now run along with hermie over there and get out of my sight”

Not gonna lie, it hurt. Not the crap about me not being worth it, Beau wasn’t worth much either, but yelling insults at Bess was not going to happen with me around.  
As Beau began to turn around and leave the cafeteria with Adele straggling behind, I began to yell.

“You want to know why I torment you so much Beau? It’s not so much for my personal satisfaction, though it certainly does play a part. It’s for all the kids who get tormented by you every day, them seeing you get humiliated day after day by me shows them that you’re not as scary as everyone thinks. Even a not-worth-it girl like me can take you off your pedestal”

Beau stopped in his tracks at my speech. I could see his breathing getting heavier as I went on, his chest rising and lowering. When I finished, I saw his face almost turn back, looking off to the side of the cafeteria. I was ready to go another round, but I was taken aback from what happened next.

Beau just walked away. He walked right out of the cafeteria with Adele and the rest of them. I wanted him to put up a fight like usual, yell more insults at me. That’s what gave me excitement. This…this just left me cold and miserable.


End file.
